Taiwan smash Mongolia

BY Paul Huang / Contributing rerporter

Taiwan punched their own ticket into the title game on the final day of the preliminaries in this year’s Asia University Men’s Basketball Championship by dominating Mongolia in a 97-59 victory at the Sinjhuang Sports Complex in New Taipei City last night for the right to take on undefeated South Korea later this afternoon.

Fourteen first-quarter points by guard Chiang Yu-an set the tone early for the hosts as they dominated the heirs of Genghis Khan from the get-go by opening a double-digit lead in the first quarter.

By the time Mongolia realized what had happened in the halftime intermission, the Taiwanese had already taken an unrelinquishable 49-28 advantage.

“We learned a thing or two from South Korea in their game against Mongolia and tried to work it into our game plan tonight and it worked really well for us,” a very pleased Taiwanese skipper Lu Ching-shan said after the game.

His troops put on tremendous pressure against the Mongolian ball handlers to overwhelm the opposition, a strategy that proved effective.

Center Lin Chih-wei also had a big day at the office by racking up 14 points, eight rebounds and four blocked-shots to champion an inside attack that met little resistance from a bigger Mongolian front court trio.

Philippines 62, China 61

Overcoming a nine-point deficit at the half, the Philippines rallied from behind with a solid second half and held off a late-game push by China to escape with a 62-61 win in Sinjhuang yesterday afternoon.

Trailing by one with eight seconds remaining in the game, China had a chance to reclaim the lead with the final possession of the ball.

However, a costly turnover by Ji Yang-hong with one second remaining denied China such an opportunity and they suffered a disheartening loss that kept them from reaching the title game.

South Korea 96, Hong Kong 44

South Korea easily won their fifth straight game in the preliminaries by humbling Hong Kong in a 96-44 affair yesterday afternoon to storm into the title game with a perfect 5-0 record.

Hong Kong only managed a dozen points in a dismal first half against a tenacious South Korean defense that made even taking a shot a formidable task.

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